Justin Hackworth in Contemporary Portraiture show at the Springville Museum of Art

Contemporary Portraiture at Springville Museum of Art (August 27, 2026 – July 23, 2027), featuring work by fine art photographer Justin Hackworth.

Here's a thing I'm stoked about. I was asked to be part of Contemporary Portraiture, a new group show at the Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah, on view now through July 23, 2027. Plenty of time to go check it out.

The exhibition brings together more than twenty contemporary Utah artists, you’ve got your painters, sculptors, and of course photographers. The point of the show is to look at portraiture as something more than a record of what somebody looks like. It's interested in what an artist's choices reveal about the person being portrayed, and about the relationship between the artist, the subject, and the viewer.

I’ve got six pieces in the show and the photograph of mine used in that promo graphic above is from Gilmer, Texas. My friend Lauren asked me to go to her hometown and document the place where she grew up. She wanted a visual record of the houses, the schools, the spots she and her friends hung out in high school. Her grandparents lived next door to her growing up, a steady presence in her life. This is them, sitting outside their house.

When we took pictures of her family and grandparents, I didn't set anything up. I asked them to sit down and then I mostly stayed out of the way. What I like about it is how much of them is in it without anybody performing: the hat, the boots, the way their hands are folded, the fact that they're sitting close but not touching. I love those details and I think they matter. That's what I'm after. I want a photograph to hold some evidence of who someone actually is. I like a portrait that can show a relationship or a moment. I like it when it can show something more than a face.

I've been photographing people in Provo and around Utah for more than twenty-five years, and most of what I make lives in somebody's house, not in a museum. But it’s sure nice to see them, there.

There are some real artist heavy-hitters in this show, and some of my favorite people. I'm honored to have my work included alongside Pamela Beach, Blair Buswell, Casey Childs, Caitlin Connolly, John Darley, Nicole Gerulat, Michael Hall, Ben Hammond, Jeff Hein, Jared Jakins, Randall Lake, Jiyoun Lee-Lodge, Howard Lyon, Santiago Michalek, Colby Sanford, Mary Sauer, Fazilat Soukhakian, Marlena Wild, and Kwani Winder.

Contemporary Portraiture
Springville Museum of Art
Springville, Utah
On view through July 23, 2027

Learn more about Contemporary Portraiture at the Springville Museum of Art.